‘A tin,’ said Sasha, as he pulled the paper off.
‘Tin! You see?’ Rosalie said.
‘What’s in it?’ Sasha shook it and wrinkled his nose. ‘What’s that God-awful stink?’
‘Nothing in it except more tins,’ Rosalie said. ‘A set of three.’
I set off back to the kitchen. I don’t know if it was a premonition, or if the combination of tiny little details had added up in my subconscious, but I was braced for it when I pushed open the door. It came almost immediately. Kim’s voice through the monitor.
‘Oh, God. Oh, God! Tell me it’s not.’
‘Oh, Jesus!’ That was Peach.
I wheeled round and ran back. Sasha was sitting with the parcel in his lap, staring down into the box. His face was white and his eyes wide.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked.
‘A rabbit,’ said Kim. ‘A poor little black rabbit. Someone’s killed it and stuffed it in a box and—’
‘Kim,’ said Rosalie. ‘I promise you that thing wasn’t in there when I wrapped the parcel.’
I went over and lifted the tin, feeling the weight. The rabbit looked pitifully tiny, curled tight with its ears folded back and its eyes shut. Its mouth shone here and there as though wet. ‘It wasn’t in there twenty minutes ago,’ I said. ‘I rearranged the gifts and this box was light then.’
‘You “rearranged” them?’ said Kim.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Sasha. ‘The B-and-B people wouldn’t have done that. It’s got to be one of us. One of you.’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Paul. ‘Why would any of us have killed a rabbit and hidden it in a present? It’s insane.’
‘Have you looked at it?’ Sasha said. He stood up and plunged his hand into the box, grabbing the little body and lifting it up. Kim moaned in her throat.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ said Buck.
‘Look at it,’ Sasha said. He held it by the scruff of its neck and shook it in Buck’s face. Buck grimaced and turned away, and Peach put a hand over her mouth as though she was going to be sick. But I looked. Because something about it was wrong – even more wrong than a baby rabbit, dead and stiffening. Its mouth wasn’t wet after all. Those winks of something shiny were fishing gut.
‘It’s had its mouth sewn shut,’ I said.
‘Stitched lips,’ said Sasha. His voice was tremulous. ‘It’s had its lips stitched.’
‘First the locked box,’ Buck said. ‘And now the stitched lips.’ But he wasn’t using his spooky voice. He was dead serious and he sounded terrified. ‘Who?’ he said.
‘For God’s sake, will you stop waving it around?’ said Rosalie.
Sasha dropped it onto the pile of unopened presents where it lolled horribly. Kim started crying and Rosalie went over to her and rubbed her back.
‘Pranks are like close magic,’ Ramsay said. ‘Or comedy. It’s all in the timing.’ He paused but no one spoke. ‘Where you just went wrong, Sasha, was “noticing” the stitches when everyone else was still gagging.’
Paul was carefully unzipping a cushion cover and tipping out the pad. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Donna?’ he said. ‘I don’t know if there can be fingerprints on rabbit fur but it’s worth trying. It’s gone too far now. We need to report this.’ He turned the cover inside out over his hands and grabbed the rabbit through the fabric.
‘Here, let me help,’ Rosalie said, drawing the cushion cover over the body and then closing the zip. ‘Although I think that’s a case of too much CSI on the telly, don’t you?’
‘Ro-Ro, how can you touch it?’ said Peach.
‘Does anyone else think I did all this?’ Sasha said. No one spoke. ‘The hamper, box, rabbit, nightie?’
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘there’s something else too. And it’s got a better chance of fingerprints than the rabbit fur.’
They all turned to gaze at me.
‘What better chance?’ said Sasha.
‘In the cupboard at the back of the billiards room.’ I was watching them closely as I spoke, watching for the one face that didn’t look mystified, the one face trying to hide knowledge and maybe failing. But I swear every one of them was blank.
‘It’s not another…?’ Peach said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s paper. That’s all. More or less. But there’s a knife. That’d be great for prints.’
Paul and Buck shared a look and a nod and together they went out. We waited a few moments, then Buck came back. ‘Sasha?’ he said. ‘You need to see this.’ He coughed. ‘Actually, you need to smell this!’
‘Oh, God,’ said Peach. ‘What is it?’
Sasha, his eyes narrowed, looked around all of us, then left.
‘What smell, Buck?’ said Rosalie. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing horrible,’ I said. ‘Just too strong. It’s like someone’s doused tissue paper with a whole bottle of perfume or something.’
‘It’s a party hat,’ Buck said. ‘A paper party hat, soaked in—’
Then a shriek interrupted him.
‘Sasha?’ said Rosalie, leaping to her feet.
I was first to the door and got there in time to see him streak along the corridor to the vestibule and go crashing out into the night.
Chapter 12
1991
I hold on hard to her, but she keeps thrashing and kicking, still trying to swim away, so I smack her on one cheek. It shocks her so much she stops paddling and her head goes under the water for a split second. When she comes up again she wails my name. She puts her arms and legs round me and hangs on like a monkey. If we were further out she’d drown both of us but I’m only a couple of lunging strokes from getting a foothold on the sand, and within a minute I’m lumbering up out of the water, holding her.
It gets harder as I haul us further and further out of the tide. When the water’s down to my knees and I’m bearing all her weight, I drop her and fall down beside her and we sit there in the shallows. I put my arm round her and pull her close. She moves easily, nearly floating as another wave comes in and washes over our laps. The water’s warmer than the air now, like it always is when the tide’s high at the end of a sunny day.
‘Carmen,’ she says. ‘Don’t tell Mum.’
Then she moans low in her throat and leans away to the side. I hold her round her waist as a huge gush of liquid comes pumping out of her mouth. It’s just about clear at first but then the second big heave looks like egg-drop soup from the Chinese carry-out and the third brings out white chunks of potato and red flecks of pepper from those horrible, horrible salads the flies feasted on, and I have to let go of her to lean over the other way and empty myself out too. It feels wonderful. The sea washes all the mess away and I take a mouthful of salt water and feel the sand scrape against my teeth as I swish it round. I spit it out in a spout and Lynsey giggles.
‘Let’s move along in case our sick comes back on the next wave,’ she says, getting up on her hands and knees and crawling along the wet sand with her dress sagging, clinging to her pipe-cleaner legs and her little round bum.
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ I say. ‘Let’s get out and go home.’
‘No!’ She plumps down again, her skirt billowing up around her like a jellyfish cap. ‘I’m staying here till I’m clean.’
‘Lynsey,’ I say, looking down through the water. I can’t be sure because the afterglow of the sunset is still pink and gold on the wavelets. ‘Where are your knickers?’
She sniffs deep in her throat and spits hard. ‘They fell off in the water.’ Her party hat has disintegrated and she’s picking shreds of it out of her hair as she speaks, rolling them into balls and flicking them.
‘Lynsey,’ I say again. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Don’t tell Mum. Nothing happened.’ Her voice is turning singsong the way it does whenever she plays pretend. ‘I didn’t go to that party you got invited to, Carmen. I stayed at home with Mum and watched Blind Date. I’ll be in my bed when you get back. I won’t ev
en wake up.’
I put my arm round her again. She’s shivering. ‘Blind Date isn’t on. Because of the football.’
That’s when she starts to cry. She hides her face against my neck and sobs. I can feel her snot on my skin because it’s so much warmer than the seawater. And her tears are warmer still. Her little tears are hot enough to spike when they trickle down through my goosebumps. We sit there till the tide’s gone so far out that not even the bubbly edges of the strongest waves come anywhere near us.
I sing to her. I start with Madonna hits, because I know all the words, but Lynsey wriggles and shakes her head. What I really need is a lullaby but I can’t remember more than the first verse of any of them. So it’s inevitable, I suppose, that I end up singing bloody Bryan Adams to her, telling her it’s all for her. Which isn’t so stupid, actually.
When I’ve been right through it twice, I stand up and tug Lynsey to her feet.
‘Are you still drunk?’ I ask her. ‘Do you still feel woozy?’
‘Was I drunk?’ She sounds surprised. ‘Was that cordial not cordial? Don’t tell Mum.’
‘Can you remember what happened?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She takes my hand as we walk up the beach. When we get to the pebbles, I slip my shoes off and put them on her little feet, buckling them a bit tighter to try and make them fit. Her toes are bright pink with the cold. ‘Everyone was gone except that plooky boy. Then he went away out too. And I asked if we were still playing Postman’s Knock. And the girl – the fat one with the jeans – said he was her cousin so she couldn’t go. So I went outside. And he said, “How old are you?” And I said, “Thirteen,” because I will be on my birthday, and I said, “How come? How old are you?” And he went away and … I forget but the next thing was I was crying and I heard him banging on a door and he was talking to someone.’
The pebbles are killing my feet. I stamp down hard with every step to make it hurt as much as it can hurt. I heard him talking. The little one’s crying, he said. She needs her mum. And I lay there on the bathroom floor and let him go to find her.
‘And then another one came. I hid under the table. The big table with all the food on it? But that food smelt so bad I thought I was going to do a sick, Carmen. I burped. That’s how he found me.’
We’re off the beach now. The boat barrier’s down and there are nettles growing close in on either side. I wriggle through, then turn to help Lynsey. She winces and tries to hide it.
‘Are you sore?’
‘Don’t tell Mum. She’ll kill me.’
‘What happened after he found you? Under the table?’
‘I ran away,’ she says. ‘I ran outside but I couldn’t go to the path home because there was a boy lying on the grass and he would see up my skirt and I didn’t have any—’ She catches her lip. ‘Then he came out and said he would go with me.’
Under the trees it’s as black as night. I keep my head down and watch my white feet against the tarmac. I watch them until it makes me dizzy to see them flashing into view over and over again, the dark ground disappearing under them. I feel as if I’m falling. And when I look up it’s not as dark as I thought anyway. The mouth of the lane glows, the leaves of the bushes on either side bright and clear. I shake my head, not understanding.
‘Someone’s coming,’ says Lynsey, as the glow becomes a glare and the headlights pin us there. The two of us in the middle of the lane, wet and bedraggled, our faces streaked and our clothes clinging. I turn to Lynsey to see if maybe we just look a wee bit tired from too many party games, if maybe we can laugh it off, but as she lifts an arm across her eyes to shield them from the light, I see a strand of seaweed hooked on the armhole of her dress. As if she drowned for real and came back from her watery grave to go haunting.
The car’s brakes squeal as it stops. Then the headlights click to dim and a door opens.
‘Girls?’ says a voice. There’s no r in the word. English. That same English voice. It’s the woman they all call Anna. ‘Are you … Is everything…?’ She sounds tired and kind of wary.
The other door slams and the man’s voice comes too. ‘Is that the two village girls? What on earth have you been doing?’
It’s his voice that does it. He’s annoyed and amused and the words he chooses – ‘two village girls’ – make out like we’re from the olden days.
‘I’ll tell you what the city girls have been doing,’ I say. ‘Morag’s drunk all your peach booze and puked it up on the floor. Rosalie’s crying her eyes out. And Jellifer’s passed out in your bed.’
‘Oh dear,’ says the woman. The man gives a bit of a snort. I can’t tell if he’s laughing. I can’t really see either of them. Standing against the headlights, they look like aliens. As if this is a close encounter. ‘Well, we asked for it, I suppose,’ the woman says, sighing. ‘Although I did think the Leslies were old enough to be responsible and Jennifer too. Do you want a lift?’
‘Don’t let them take us home,’ Lynsey breathes into my neck. ‘We’ll never get in without Mum hearing if a car drives up.’
‘Ask me what the boys have been doing,’ I say.
‘Swimming?’ says the man. ‘With you two? Our lads do tend to head for water when they’re in high spirits.’
‘Guess again.’ I don’t know where I’m getting the nerve to speak to them like this. Maybe it’s the way their headlights are shining on us, so bright they’re making my head hurt. And my sore head’s making my stomach start to roll again.
‘I’m not sure I care for your tone, if I’m honest,’ the man says.
‘Shut up, Oliver,’ the woman says. She walks closer. I can pick out her features when the bulk of her body blocks the headlights’ beam. ‘What are you talking about, dear?’
‘Never mind,’ I say. She’s not threatening or anything. She looks kind and tired, and she’s got her bag on across her body like a sash and her mascara’s run and she smells like smoke. I don’t think she’s had much of a night either. ‘We just want to go home, eh, Lynsey?’
‘But— Good grief, where are your shoes?’ the woman says. ‘Aren’t you cold?’
‘Made of sturdy stock, these country girls,’ her husband puts in.
‘And what’s that?’ She bends close to Lynsey. I think she’s seen the seaweed, but her eyes aren’t on Lynsey’s dress: they’re on her legs.
‘Mud,’ Lynsey says, moving so she’s standing half behind me. ‘We went swimming.’
The woman crouches right down and peers even closer, like Lynsey’s some kind of insect. ‘Oh! My dear, you’re hurt! What happened? Oliver, turn the car. Turn the car round. We need to get this girl to a doctor.’
‘Oh, come off it!’ says the man. ‘I can’t drive to a hospital, Anna. I’m way over the limit. I’ll get done. What’s the problem anyway?’
‘I’m fine,’ says Lynsey. ‘Bit cold. I need a shower.’
‘I’ll drive you home,’ the woman says. ‘And we’ll see about the doctor, eh?’
‘God’s sake,’ says the man. ‘Don’t you think we should go and see if our own children and our nephews and nieces are in alcoholic comas or burning the house down? These two are clearly used to being out and about on their own.’
I’m darting glances all over Lynsey, no idea why the woman’s taking such a flaky. Then I spot it, bright and shocking in the headlight glare. Lynsey must be numb with cold not to feel any pain. And now I understand why she wouldn’t get out of the saltwater. I didn’t see it when I put my shoes on her, or maybe it hadn’t started again by then, but now the blood is streaking down both her legs and seeping along the tops of my sandals.
‘Don’t tell my mum,’ she says. ‘She’ll kill—’ Then she stops and turns, distracted by a noise behind us. Footsteps are slapping along the lane and the light from a torch is bobbing like a karaoke ball.
‘There you are!’ It’s the big girl, Jellifer, up out of the bed where I saw her, flushed now and panting. She stops and puts her hands on her knees. That’s when I notice the wat
er dripping off the hem of her skirt. ‘We thought you’d drowned!’ she says. ‘No one saw you leave. Why didn’t you say you’d gone home, sillies?’
‘Jennifer,’ says the woman. ‘You were supposed to be looking after them. You’re eighteen years old. We thought we could trust you.’
‘What?’ says the girl. ‘It’s not my fault they took off.’
‘Why is Ro-Ro crying?’ the woman says. ‘And why did you let Morag drink enough peach schnapps to be sick? And why were you sleeping in my bed?’
‘What?’ says the girl again. ‘Who told you that?’ Her eyes are wide and her mouth’s open in an O-shape. She looks like a cartoon of a choirboy on a Christmas card. I can’t believe the woman’s buying it. Then a smile spreads over her face. ‘Oh, wait. Carmen, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Morag spilled the schnapps. It does stink a bit, but it didn’t bounce off her stomach, thank God. Yuck! And I went into your room, Aunt Anna, to close your curtains and turn down your bed for you. Least I could do after you let us take over like that. I don’t know why Rosalie was crying, but she’s all right now. She’s at the beach with the rest of us, laughing her head off. Listen. That’s why we never noticed this pair had sneaked away.’
And when she stops talking we can all hear the sound of them larking around. It comes through the still night like wildlife cries. Like foxes. The woman looks at us, then at the girl who’s called Jennifer, of course, then over at her husband. He’s leaning on the bonnet of the car, smoking what I think, from the smell, is a cigar.
‘My period started,’ says Lynsey. ‘That’s why we left.’
‘Oh, no!’ says Jennifer. ‘What a time for it to happen.’
The woman lets out a high, nervous laugh. ‘Oliver, next time you tell me I’m being too dramatic, don’t let me argue. Poor little thing,’ she adds.
I say nothing. Lynsey hasn’t started her periods yet. Ten girls in her class have and she’s one of three still waiting.
‘I should have something,’ says the woman, scrabbling in her bag. ‘I don’t suppose you use…? No, of course not. But I might have a liner.’
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